


Leave a Message

by contextclues



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Dead Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Denial, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Deserves Better, Moving On, Phone Calls & Telephones, Protective Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Strong Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Voicemail, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22106704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contextclues/pseuds/contextclues
Summary: She still had so much left to say to him.___A voicemail AU
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 29
Kudos: 140





	1. Merry Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [It Went To Voicemail](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18581080) by [Shaladaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaladaze/pseuds/Shaladaze). 



"Merry Christmas!" The voice was light, obviously feminine but the distortion over the phone made it sound a bit deeper, "It's snowing."

"I can hardly see a metre in front of me," The voice laughed quietly, "I know you always wanted to see a white Christmas. You would've loved it, promise."

"I was gonna get you something, y'know." The voice got less enthusiastic as it continued, "I made you a sweater. I was going to take you to get hot chocolate after patrol and give it to you."

"I don't know what to do with it now," She was barely audible, only every three or four syllables rose beyond a whisper, "I don't want to throw it away, you know? That's wasteful. But I can't give it away either, I mean, it's _yours_."

"I can't keep it, though."

"I'll figure it out!" She quickly promised, "Most of all, Merry Christmas. I miss you."

The only sound between those words and the click of her hanging up was the rustle as she moved the phone down from her ear to press the glaringly red 'end call'.


	2. Happy New Year

"Hey! It's New Year's Eve!" Marinette announced as soon as the beep signalled she could speak, "Only five hours left."

"I, uh, y'know," She began with a breathy sort of chuckle that wasn't accompanied by a smile, "It's weird. We didn't even have any traditions or anything for New Year's."

"I feel like we should've."

"That's not really the weird part, though." She sighed after a pause and the sound of her collapsing backwards onto her bed was also audible through the call, "This is going to officially be my first year without you."

She stopped for a moment, taking a shuddering breath before she could continue, "I don't want to leave you behind."

She sniffed quietly, "It's stupid, right?"

She sniffed again, more forcefully this time, and her voice was wet when it returned, "I'll still miss you next year."

The call cut off without a goodbye, this time.


	3. Tuesday

"It's not a holiday, this time." Marinette reported in lieu of a greeting, "Just wanted to call."

"It's a Tuesday. You know when we first met it was a Tuesday."

"Every time I see a silver sedan, I check if it's you, y'know." She mused softly, "It's not."

She didn't pause, already unsettled with how empty her room had started to feel, "Last week I saw someone who was blond. I walked next to him for as long as a could because,"

She stopped for a second when her voice broke but carried on in time for her to not have to restart the sentence.

"I don't know," She whispered, "I kept hoping that maybe the next time I looked over, it might be you instead."

"God, that sounds so dumb, doesn't it? I probably just freaked the poor guy out."

She fell silent for a long moment where the only sounds to fill the microphone were from her picking at the edge of her phone case.

"It was really sunny today," She finally stated, "You would've liked it."

Her goodbye wasn't louder than a breath, but it was more tangible, it was more weighty and dense, "Talk to you soon, Kitty. I miss you."


	4. Getting so Bad

"You're a fucking bastard, Chat Noir," Her voice was loud this time, clear and heavy and building with every word. 

"You piece of fucking shit! Why would you do that? You promised me you'd stop jumping into danger the moment you had the fucking chance but you didn't, did you?"

She was pacing on her balcony and ran her free hand roughly through her hair as she spoke, tugging painfully at the knots she was making.

"You stupid fucking liar," Her voice began to drop again as her words slowed, "I fucking _miss_ you."

"You don't know that I miss you."

She moved her other hand down from her hair to cover her eyes and dig her nails painfully into her temple.

"It's getting so bad without you." Was her simple, poignant farewell as she fumbled to end the call.


	5. Forgetful

"Hey, Adrien." She only began speaking a few seconds after the voicemail actually started, which broke the pattern her other four calls had started. "It's been a while since I talked to you." 

"Twelve days, actually." She mumbled, "I keep trying to stop calling, it's not like you're going to ever pick up."

"February starts tomorrow, though, which means I've made it a full month without you."

She stumbled a few times over her next sentence, unsure of how to phrase it in a way that made sense, "You know how when you read about grief online people say that they see whoever they lost everywhere?"

"Like they hear their voice in the wind or see their face in the corner of their eye? Stuff like that?"

She hadn't been emotional during the call yet, but her voice started to crack as she came to her point, "I always used to fear that so much. Being trapped in a world that would constantly throw my grief at me and not being able to move on? I was so terrified."

"It's not like that though," She rubbed hastily at her eyes, trying to stop tearing up before she actually began to cry, "I wish it was."

"I don't hear your voice in the wind." She admitted, succumbing to a murmur when her regular voice refused to work, "I still have videos, but you sounded different in real life."

"I don't remember the way your eyes looked when you were suited up. All up close. I remember I loved them."

The next sound wasnt her voice, but the thunk of her phone against her desk as she tossed it down. 

She hugged her knees as she swiveled slowly in her desk chair and finished her call.

"I don't want to forget you."


	6. Valentine's Day

"Hey Chat," She whispered, "Adrien? I don't know what to call you."

"Happy Valentine's Day," Her swinging leg caused a faint rustling, but the microphone barely picked it up, "Remember last year? We went to a cafe together and played Uno."

"It was so much fun," Like many of her voicemails, her voice never raised to even regular speaking volume. It was quiet, soft but not quite gentle.

"I wish we could play Uno again," She pressed in a voice that was a mixture of a chuckle and a teary sniffle.

"That's stupid." She sighed, "That's so dumb."

"It's been four months, right? You'd think I would've moved on. Or, like, at least started to."

"I just want you here," The sentiment was still soft, like the rest of her words, but it were more thick. It was desperate and hung from her lips rather than floated from them.

"And," Her voice was starting to break, the cracks between words growing wider and more deep, "You never even knew who I was."

"That's all you ever fucking wanted from me. Just my name." Her words were heavier than she had meant for them to ever get, but she didn't care.

"I just thought we'd have more time than we did."

She didn't trust her voice enough to continue for much longer so she just closed the call by repeating herself, "Which was so fucking dumb."


	7. Miss you

"Hi," The voicemail hadn't even started and her voice was shaking, quivering and stumbling over the single audible syllable she had recorded. 

"I miss you so much," She sniffed, wet voice struggle to remain coherent, "I know I say that so much."

"I just, I don't want it to lose its meaning just because I say it every single time," She was begging him to understand, her voice was pleading, it was wavering more and more with every ounce of effort.

"I fucking _miss_ you, okay? Like, I wake up in the morning and my first thought is you, _every time_." She hiccuped quietly as she began to cry between her rush of words.

"Every time I do something, I want you there to talk about it. Every time I'm not doing something, I want you there to fill the silence."

"I'm just realizing how fucking much I needed you and I don't know what to do alone," She sniffled wetly over the call.

"And one day I won't even have this because your voicemail will fill up because you're not here to clear it out. I don't want to take this for granted, Adrien."

"I would give up anything to hug you again. Or see you talking with Nino. Hell, I'd probably settle with fighting an akuma with you one last time."

"Just," She sniffed again, hurriedly, as if she thought taking too long might make him misunderstand how sincere she was.

"I miss you so much. I really do." 

She hiccuped again, more loudly than before.

"God, I fucking miss you."


	8. Valentine's Day II

"Happy Valentine's Day. Again."

"I know I already left a voicemail, but I keep thinking of things I want to tell you, so here I am," She explained, quietly.

"I went out and bought myself a rose today." She began, "I don't know why."

"Well, I do," She corrected with a gentle sort of half-laugh. "They remind me of you. Remember that time a few years ago when you had set up this beautiful little dinner on a rooftop?"

She wasn't expecting an answer, but she still paused for a second.

"You didn't ever know it but I was there. You went to me as Marinette and I had never seen you like that. I don't even know the word," She rambled, "Not sad? Just sullen, I guess?"

"Anyway, you took me to the rooftop and you gave me Ladybug's rose," She recounted softly, "And it was beautiful. And I could tell you hated it. The way you looked at it was like you wanted to tear every petal off of it and have it melt into the ground, but you gave it to me instead."

"And I still have it." Her words were broken now, just little shards of her voice peeking between staggered whispers, "I pressed it between books for weeks once it began to wilt because I didn't want to lose it. I have it framed above my bed now."

"And sometimes I look at it and I, I dont know, I just begun to think that maybe," She paused for a moment to catch herself before she began stuttering, and looked up at the sky to stop herself from tearing up before she carried on, "Maybe it's actually better that we didn't know each other's identities."

"Because," Her voice was getting to thick to ignore, so she tried to swallow it down before making her point, "Because I was only rejecting you for you, you know? The only reason I refused to admit I loved you was because I was in love with you."

"And the job was so important, you know? It's the entirety of Paris, that was millions of lives in our hands."

She slowly lowered the phone to her lap and brought her opposite hand up to cover her eyes.

"But I know that I would've if I had let myself love you, you would've become the priority. I know that if I could go back in time, I'd give anything, I'd risk anyone for just five minutes with you, and that's horrible."

"That's just so much that isn't mine but I'm giving it away. I can't do that."

She dropped her other hand back to her lap, but closed her eyes and let gravity help her head fall back against her chair.

"I think we were too perfect for each other."

"This is starting to make no sense."

"I'll just end it here, I guess."

"I miss you. And it's starting to really fucking hurt, okay? I just," She choked on her voice again, "I just really fucking miss you and I want to see you again, and I wish I would stop thinking about you all the time, but I can't."

"Sorry," She tried to recover with a gentle laugh, "Sorry. Bye."


	9. Slow

"Everyone always says that it's okay to take your time to heal, that it's normal to not be okay for a while, y'know?"

"But you've taken over my life. I can't be happy without wanting you to be there too," She mused, "If I'm sad, you're probably the reason. I can't ever take a break from working or school because the moment I have a free thought, it's of you."

"I agree grief is normal and it takes different amounts of time for everybody, but I'm so, so scared, Adrien. I'm fucking terrified, actually," She admitted carefully, with words as solid as she could force them to be, "Because it's starting to seem like I'm not going to get better."

"You were my other half, and I'm not saying that to be sappy. The universe said it when we got our kwamis." She whispered, as her voice began to weave between sound and silence. 

"I don't know how to explain this. We aren't like phone batteries, we can't run on fifty percent. Half a heart can't keep the blood pumping." She tried to laugh as she presented her analogy, frustrated at her mind for not allowing her to think of anything better. 

"But I don't want to die without having forgiven you for leaving. I can barely understand what I'm saying right now. I'm so tired."

"I feel sick all the time, I can't sleep because I don't want to dream of you, I can't eat because I'm so fucking sad all the time, I can never focus on anything, I'm barely living anymore and it's your _fucking_ fault, Noir." Her lazy, broken breaths and turned into bitter, hushed anger. Grief had many faces and longing was only one.

"You fucking killed me. You killed me and you didn't let me say goodbye."

She hit the red little button with a bit too much force, but she didn't quite care at the time.


	10. Right Now

"Sometimes I want to blame you." She started softly, slowly twirling in a semicircular motion while she sat in her desk chair and the tip of her shoe dragged on the floor, "Fuck, _most_ of the time I blame you."

Her voice was tired. Low and drawling, but it had an edge to it that she didn't know how to place, "But it's my fault."

"You told me since we first met how I would love you if I gave you the chance. How we would be perfect for eachother. You gave me _every opportunity_ , and I'm the one who didn't listen."

The absent minded spinning in her chair had slowed to a stop at some point in her last sentence, but she didn't bother to start doing it again. She just leaned forward to her desk to drop her chin into her hand as she continued softly.

"I kept thinking we had forever and a day. If it never went anywhere with Adrien, I'd allow myself to look at you that way as Chat."

Her voice had slipped into a breathy sort of bitterness. Something stuck between a whisper and a sob.

"But we didn't have that kind of time. Forever doesn't _exist_ , we only ever have the right now."

She allowed the open palm that was supporting her head to drop down to her table and finger the frayed edges of the good luck charm he had gifted her.

"Most people think that's the best part of life, though." She whispered, "The 'right now'."

"I ignored it when it told me I had it right under my nose. And now it's gone," She cut off with a hollow chuckle, "And I don't want the 'right now' that replaced it."

"I miss you, Adrien." She finished near-silently, "I'll talk to you later."


End file.
